Why Does Email I Send End Up in the Recipients Spam
Folder?

Email is a big part of everyday
business. Both sending and receiving. We all get mail from
people we don't know asking for information about doing
business with us. Unfortunately, not all responses we send
are received and read.

One of the most frustrating things is when you get an email
from someone that hasn't properly configured their mail
program with their correct return address. In this case,
the response you send will come back as undeliverable. At
least this time you know that the person didn't get your
response and you might have a phone number or other way
to contact them.

But what happens when you send a response and it goes into
their Spam or Junk folder instead of their Inbox? Since
it didn't bounce back you're assuming that the email was
delivered and read. In reality, unless the recipient checks
their Spam folder they will never know that you responded
to their inquiry.

So why would your email not go into their Inbox? There are
several reasons that email ends up in someone's Spam or
Junk folder:

The Junk Mail filter has identified one or more keywords
that spammers repeatedly use in their messagesSee
How to Avoid

TO AVOID: Mind Your Language:
Most spam filters depend on keywords and the language
that you use in your email messages and subject
lines can cause you mail to be sent to the recipients
spam folder. Also, the use of excessive punctuation,
all capitals or too many emotions may affect your
email delivery.

BEST PRACTICES:
 Avoid superlatives in the subject line. Phrases
like 'best mail', 'amazing', 'superb one' or even
phrases like 'just the one that you want' are usually
ranked high on the block list of most of the spam
filters.
 Keep the length of your subject under 45
characters.
 Avoid using to many capitals, punctuation
or typical spam words (free, win, euro, € $,
sex,...) in the subject line of your mail.
 Avoid using excessive exclamation marks or
other punctuation in general, capitals and white
space in the body of your mail.

The recipient has flagged the sender as someone that
sends spam See
How to Avoid

TO AVOID: People have all sorts
of reasons for marking mail as spam. Some are legitimate,
others are not.

Sometimes your email may be marked as spam because
the recipient doesn't recognize your name in the
'From' column, even if they emailed you and asked
for information.

Quite a few people misunderstand the purpose of
a button in their email program that says 'Spam'
or "Report as Spam' and use this button anytime
they want to delete an email, not realizing that
they are now blocking future mail from that sender.

BEST PRACTICES:
 When people check their mail, the first thing
they look at is the 'From' and the 'Subject'. Try
to choose a 'From' name that the reader is likely
to recognize. Try to make the subject of your mail
perk the readers interest while avoiding the key
spam words.

The recipient's ISP has filtered the mail as spam
or junk mail based on the content or the senders IP
address See
How to Avoid

TO AVOID: ISP's are aggressively
working to reduce spam. As a result, some legitimate
mail is also tagged and either blocked or put into
a spam folder.

Occasionally your IP address may get blacklisted
and all email delivery to that ISP will stop. When
this happens you need to call us and we will get
the blacklist removed.

BEST PRACTICES: The only way you can guarantee
that your email is delivered properly is to have
the recipient add your email address to their 'White
List' or 'Friends List' which will tell their mail
program to always allow email from you to come directly
into their Inbox. While this is not a great solution
for people you email once or twice in response to
an inquiry, it is good for those that you have ongoing
email correspondence with.

TO AVOID: Attachments can be a
problem if they are too large, because most ISP
will not send or receive anything over 10MB. However,
attachments can also be a trigger for spam filters.
Attachments are one way that malicious people will
send a virus and you should never open an attachment
from someone that you don't know.

BEST PRACTICES: If you need to send an attachment
to someone who has requested information, it's best
to first email them a short text-only email letting
them know that a second email with the information
as an attachment is coming. Hopefully, this alert
will prompt them to look in their spam folder or
contact you if the email with the attachment does
not arrive in their Inbox.

TO AVOID: Don't send emails with
fancy html or lots of links . . . spammers frequently
do both in their emails.

BEST PRACTICES:
 Don't use too many colors or large font sizes.
 Don't send emails with fancy html. If you
must, make sure that it is well formed and that
the syntax is correct.
 Don't place too many different links in your
mail.
 Never, never use an IP address in your links.
An IP address looks like '127.0.0.1'.

TO AVOID: Skip the pictures. Unfortunately,
Spam filters are against email dressed up with pretty
pictures and graphics because porn traders and other
spammers like to use such graphics to attract users.
This means all email with graphics suffer. Also,
avoid those pre-format emails with a logo and letterhead
on them.

BEST PRACTICES:
 Make sure that your mail is a lot more image
than text.
 Your mail may look better in HTML since you
can format it and add logos and banners but this
will also increase your spam score.

The email was addressed to a large group of people
(either in the 'TO' or using 'CC') See
How to Avoid

TO AVOID: When you send an email
that contains a large number or recipients in either
the 'TO' field or the 'CC' (carbon copy) field,
you are more likely to be seen as sending spam.
Making use of blind carbon copy('BCC') can cut down
on this some.

BEST PRACTICES: Spam filters monitor the
number of recipients closely and they're set to
block email with more than a limited number or recipients.
So if you need to deliver an important message to
a large group better use the 'BCC' function.

The recipient has set up 'rules' in their mail program
that are too generic and therefore tagging your mail
as spam. See
How to Avoid

TO AVOID: Unfortunately, you have
no control over the 'rules' and 'filters' that others
use with their email programs. However, when sending
an email to someone new it's best to send a plain
text email with no attachments the first time or
follow up on the email (by phone or plain text email)
and make sure that it was received.

Spammers are getting smarter and more aggressive every day
and so are spam filters that try to keep up with them. As
a result we need to pay attention to what are often the
small details in our email that may restrict the deliverability
of our email correspondence.